Forecasting the tablet market: over 377 million units by 2016

Today tablets are a fast-growing sector of mobile computing, and while the tablet market is still in the early stages of adoption, tens of millions of units are being sold each year.

This report summarizes the current state of the tablet market and provides a detailed five-year forecast of estimated sales by vendor, operating system platform, region, form factor, embedded wireless and consumer vs. enterprise. The tablet market is forecast to be slightly over 377 million units by 2016 or about the same size as the notebook market is estimated to be in five years. Android is expected to have the overall leading market share, but Apple is expected to continue as the largest single vendor. Many people will begin to use tablets instead of notebooks if they do not need the greater functionality provided by the Windows and Mac operating environments.